Thursday, September 22, 2011

Last week, Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline published a tutorial video for Easy Timeline. Besides being an insightful reviewer, Don is also a customer of our timeline products and does a wonderful job of explaining things clearly.

I highly recommend this video for long-time customers as well as people who are checking out our software for the first time.

If you are an Easy Timeline customer, you can upgrade to Timeline 3D (v3) for the price difference between the two products. Simply purchase Timeline 3D and then send me a copy of your Easy Timeline receipt from the Mac App Store at support@beedocs.com. I will refund the price you paid for Easy Timeline from your Timeline 3D order.

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Why a new timeline software product?

Timeline 3D was originally designed to meet the needs of lawyers making trial exhibits. Both our product and our customer base have greatly expanded since then. However, professional customers remain an important part of the DNA of Timeline 3D.

I often hear from students and other folks who want to the same create beautiful timelines, but for whom the $65 price is a barrier. I have had many requests from customers who prefer to purchase software from the Mac App Store. I also understand that some people only need to purchase our software in order to present a timeline for a single project.

Easy Timeline is for these people. Easy Timeline is designed to be a simple, inexpensive, and self contained. It is designed specifically for students and ocassional users.

What do Easy Timeline and Timeline 3D have in common?

Both products can present beautiful interactive 3D timelines.

Both products allow you to create custom timelines using any date format you can imagine.

Both products allow you to drag and drop multimedia such images, movies, and audio onto timeline events.

Both of products share the same document format, so timeline documents can be exchanged between the two applications.

Both products are fully localized to over 13 languages (including help documentation) and include the ability to create timelines in any language.

How do they differ?

Timeline 3D was designed to function as part of professional work flow. It can import events from many different Mac applications, including iCal, Aperture, iPhoto, OmniFocus, Basecamp, Skitch, etc…

Timeline 3D also can publish timelines to websites, YouTube, Keynote as well as export timelines as HD video with advanced rendering features such as motion blur and audio soundtracks.

Easy Timeline is designed to be more self contained. The options to import data, publish timelines, and render video are limited. However, Easy Timeline does contain the ability to print and save two-dimensional timeline as PDF. It also shares the ability to present 3D full-screen interactive timelines from within the software.

Why not call it Timeline 3D Lite?

At this time, Easy Timeline contains a subset of the functionally of Timeline 3D. However, I want the freedom to evolve it separately from our flagship product based on the target audiences of each product.

My intention is that each of our timeline products are well designed and useful for their intended audiences, not that one is a trial version of the other.